Category Archives: Beer Fests

Today is #BCBS day, where six versions of Goose Island’s Bourbon County Brand Stout are being released in Chicago. Us Torontonians get one version at twice the price (#Toronto).

I didn’t understand the buzz around BCBS, having tried it once last year and not loved it. Then I went to Chicago a couple weeks ago, tried five different versions (Prop, double bourbon barrel, coffee + two different barrel blends) at FOBAB (as well as many more bourbon barrel aged stouts), and I get it. Bourbon County is truly the world’s best bourbon barrel aged stout. It is perfectly smooth for being so strong. It is dry for being so desserty. It is fucking delicious. It is worth lining up overnight for.

My favourite variant is this year’s Proprietor’s blend, which tastes like a chocolate macaroon. A chocolate macaroon in 14% alcohol form that I could sip all day. It has banana, almonds and cassia bark. It is one of the best beers I have ever had in my life. But I’ll have to drink it a second time to be sure. 😉

This past weekend, I attended my third Cask Days, the all-cask (*ahem*, mostly-cask) beer festival the Morana family started 11 years ago. It was awesome. Not only did I get to try some word-class brews like Four Winds Nectarous, the dry-hopped sour which won Beer of the Year at the 2016 Canadian Brewing Awards, but I got to cheers a bunch of my friends with said beer. Because we went for the first session on Friday. And had first pick of everythang. Also, Halo, that brewery I work for who won Best Newcomer at this year’s Golden Tap Awards, had two of their delicious offerings on cask: Event Horizon and Elder God. Continue reading →

After a couple years of throwing packed monthly events, the Society of Beer Drinking Ladies is organizing bigger beer fests in addition to their regular bevies.

The first SOBDL beer fest (Bevyfest) took place at the Evergreen Brick Works on April 1, and sold out with 800 women in attendance. That festival earned my eternal praise, because it set the bar for how great beer fests can be: well organized and executed, friendly volunteers and organizers, delicious food and most importantly, incredible beer. They even had Muskoka chairs around several firepits to offset the cold. Continue reading →

Last night I volunbeered at my fifth SOBDL bevy, though it was the 25th bevy for the organizers; five awesome women working in the beer industry who saw a need for creating a space where ladies could drink beer together. They’ve been throwing sold out mini beer fests in different locations around the city on the last Friday of the month for over two years now. With that much experience rocking beer events, it should come as no surprise that last night’s Bevy Brewfest, Canada’s first female beerfest drawing 800 women to the Evergreen Brick Works, was one of the best fests I’ve ever attended.

Cask Days happened again. I had a wonderful wine barrel aged raspberry cider from Toronto’s West Avenue called Bohemian Raspberry. There’s never enough West Avenue — what a gem! Photo from my Instagram.

The beer was lighter than it appears here. (But good filter, amirite?)

Session Toronto 2015 happened and it was good. I love this festival because, like most craft beer festivals, there’s good beer, good company and good music (it just so happens that The Beatles and Sublime repertoire totally caters to me).

What really interests me about this festival is the beer contest: breweries partner with celebrities on beer collabs, and the crowd votes for their favourite. The winner gets their beer at the LCBO (and a lot of free press). We’ve seen this with 2013’s Tom Green Milk Stout (Beaus) and 2014’s Sam Roberts Band Session Ale (Spearhead), both of whom made appearances last year:

Yes, this year brought Olympic athletes to the beer fest, but the real winner in my book was the outcast: which happened to be the collab by Big Rock Brewery (from Calgary) and Judd Nelson, from The Breakfast Club.

I was introduced to this beer by my friend Magenta from the SOBDL, who was drinking it when I first arrived to Session, and I asked what was in her cup. “It’s called Mindbender… Nobody really likes it, but I do. It has a lot of flavour.” I said I would try it, and then this beautiful man poured me some while I was chatting in line with an old friend about his beer startup and all was right with the world.

My beer’s glorious nitrous white head settled, and I took a sip. It indeed tasted like a stout: roasty and smooth with pronounced coffee flavour. I later learned from Chris of Big Rock that Mindbender is a 9% White Imperial Stout — a bold choice for my first beer of the night. He then told me about Judd Nelson, and how he planned to be here for Session, but his agent made him stay in LA for a last-minute movie reading or something like that. He said that white stouts are pretty rare, and that the coffee taste comes from slow-roasted white coffee beans. This one beer was so unique, it deserved its own documented story.